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Messing About With Your Puppy!
Jul. 1st, 2018 11:00 pmIt’s been a rather quiet weekend all told, largely based around watching the football. Funky came over for both the Saturday Portugal v Uruguay fixture and Sunday’s Croatia v Denmark clash, with us cooking a BBQ on both occasions. Unfortunately Wolfie has been somewhat preoccupied with work for most of Sunday afternoon meaning it was just Funky and I watching the game, but we had a good time and it was one of those social experiences that makes major football tournaments so good. I’m not going to lie though as I’m getting a little bit sick of BBQ food but then the weather has been so good over the past two months it’s so hard not to. We may change our tune slightly for Tuesday’s England v Colombia match.
Yesterday we headed out to the Festival of Brewers event at New Craven Hall. This is a new beer festival showcasing the very best of local brewing talent - indeed the vast majority of the ten or so breweries there came from inside the Leeds ring road. I must admit it was odd being at this venue not dressed as a rubber gimp dog but it was great just basking in the sunshine in the shadow of the grey industrial unit and a concrete wall which formed part of a flyover. Music was provided by the recording studio next door, which was showcasing some pretty decent rock bands, while there was some excellent food there from an Indian concession serving out of a converted horse box. The onion bhajis and the fries were exquisite though and excellent filler food after a few beers.
We were trying to keep the drinking to a minimum and indeed we brought a large number of cans and bottles back home with us to sample, but many of the breweries I had not had before and all of the serving staff were really friendly. Indeed the same could be said of the attendees too, particularly the teacher with whom I shared my camomile lager early on and the lesbian couple who were getting one of their mothers involved in craft beer. The highlight though was yet guided tasting from Mike Hampshire, the organiser of the event and someone who I follow on Untappd. He’s a big local beer fan and had collected five beers being showcased, giving us a guided tasting on what to look out for. We discussed look, smell and taste along with more in-depth stuff such as tastebud saturation and how all of this affects the beer drinking experience. The tasting was only scheduled to go on for half an hour but so fascinating it was that we ended up being there for nearly fifty minutes, with Mike hurrying us on as he had another tasting to give. It was good to meet up with him at last as he was just a random name on my beer drinking group, while the event was so good we ended up staying well later than we intended, having to get a taxi back so we would be back home in time for Funky’s arrival. We only had about three pints but for some reason, maybe the heat, it affected us more than it normally does and we were quite drunk for the rest of the evening, even tough we had no alcohol after 6pm. Indeed Wolfie fell asleep on the couch when he got back and Funky started piling stuff on him, such was his level of inebriation. We ended up drinking a number of beers we had picked up this evening, with the brewers’ friendliness even extending to giving us a free bottle of beer when the bag in which we were carrying the beers tore open in the venue.
Sunday was a more relaxed day but as the weather was so good again, we decided to miss the 3pm kick off and go for a drive. We ended up at Ogden Water near Halifax, a Victorian reservoir with a promenade which was fun to walk across. It’s an amazing piece of engineering as you can see some of its workings from the promenade, with some of the stonework being buried under turf. The lake did seem quite dry but that wasn’t too surprising considering the lack of rainfall we have had of late. Although parking proved tricky, it was ultimately a pleasurable hour spent as we walked around the man-made lake, through forests which provided previous shelter from the beating sun. Interestingly we kept bumping into the same people over and over again, particularly a rather charming elderly couple, so that was nice. It was great just ambling alongside and chatting to Wolfie as we have been a bit distant lately, partly due to work and partly due to sleeping in separate beds due to the incessant heat. This made this time out even more important while we also got a nice ice cream from a van parked in the car park, with the vendor telling us all about the different cone shapes and how the ice cream reacts with it.
On the way home, we stopped off at the village of Thornton, an interesting place through which we had driven on the way to Ogden Water. Here we noticed a plaque commemorating the entrance to the old station, which was closed in 1955 with little now remaining of it. Indeed it would appear a primary school has now been built on the top of it. On the sign, we did notice that there was a Thornton Viaduct which despite being only 200m from where we were, we couldn’t see because it was in a valley. As such, we drove into Thornton proper - with the station being slightly out of the centre - and walked down to this rather imposing twenty arch structure. It’s amazing to think that it’s no longer in use, such is its imposing nature on the landscape. It’s tall thin arches only added to its dominance and it only got more dominating as you viewed it from multiple angles. It was interesting to see a trio of youths unperturbed by the cows in the field playing with their drones, while we decided to explore this rather quaint village. It’s now really just a suburb of western Bradford but some of the old buildings still survive including mills, lanes where industry workshops once stood and the house in which the Bronte sisters were born, which was a surprise to see. It was quite non-descript, which I guess isn’t a surprise, while the church at one end of the town was undoubtedly the architectural highlight, at least after the viaduct. The fact they have a coffee house called He Brews entertains me greatly.
So that was it really, after this we headed home to watch the football, Wolfie did work and we had a rather relaxing cheap weekend. It’s a shame that Work begins again tomorrow.
Yesterday we headed out to the Festival of Brewers event at New Craven Hall. This is a new beer festival showcasing the very best of local brewing talent - indeed the vast majority of the ten or so breweries there came from inside the Leeds ring road. I must admit it was odd being at this venue not dressed as a rubber gimp dog but it was great just basking in the sunshine in the shadow of the grey industrial unit and a concrete wall which formed part of a flyover. Music was provided by the recording studio next door, which was showcasing some pretty decent rock bands, while there was some excellent food there from an Indian concession serving out of a converted horse box. The onion bhajis and the fries were exquisite though and excellent filler food after a few beers.
We were trying to keep the drinking to a minimum and indeed we brought a large number of cans and bottles back home with us to sample, but many of the breweries I had not had before and all of the serving staff were really friendly. Indeed the same could be said of the attendees too, particularly the teacher with whom I shared my camomile lager early on and the lesbian couple who were getting one of their mothers involved in craft beer. The highlight though was yet guided tasting from Mike Hampshire, the organiser of the event and someone who I follow on Untappd. He’s a big local beer fan and had collected five beers being showcased, giving us a guided tasting on what to look out for. We discussed look, smell and taste along with more in-depth stuff such as tastebud saturation and how all of this affects the beer drinking experience. The tasting was only scheduled to go on for half an hour but so fascinating it was that we ended up being there for nearly fifty minutes, with Mike hurrying us on as he had another tasting to give. It was good to meet up with him at last as he was just a random name on my beer drinking group, while the event was so good we ended up staying well later than we intended, having to get a taxi back so we would be back home in time for Funky’s arrival. We only had about three pints but for some reason, maybe the heat, it affected us more than it normally does and we were quite drunk for the rest of the evening, even tough we had no alcohol after 6pm. Indeed Wolfie fell asleep on the couch when he got back and Funky started piling stuff on him, such was his level of inebriation. We ended up drinking a number of beers we had picked up this evening, with the brewers’ friendliness even extending to giving us a free bottle of beer when the bag in which we were carrying the beers tore open in the venue.
Sunday was a more relaxed day but as the weather was so good again, we decided to miss the 3pm kick off and go for a drive. We ended up at Ogden Water near Halifax, a Victorian reservoir with a promenade which was fun to walk across. It’s an amazing piece of engineering as you can see some of its workings from the promenade, with some of the stonework being buried under turf. The lake did seem quite dry but that wasn’t too surprising considering the lack of rainfall we have had of late. Although parking proved tricky, it was ultimately a pleasurable hour spent as we walked around the man-made lake, through forests which provided previous shelter from the beating sun. Interestingly we kept bumping into the same people over and over again, particularly a rather charming elderly couple, so that was nice. It was great just ambling alongside and chatting to Wolfie as we have been a bit distant lately, partly due to work and partly due to sleeping in separate beds due to the incessant heat. This made this time out even more important while we also got a nice ice cream from a van parked in the car park, with the vendor telling us all about the different cone shapes and how the ice cream reacts with it.
On the way home, we stopped off at the village of Thornton, an interesting place through which we had driven on the way to Ogden Water. Here we noticed a plaque commemorating the entrance to the old station, which was closed in 1955 with little now remaining of it. Indeed it would appear a primary school has now been built on the top of it. On the sign, we did notice that there was a Thornton Viaduct which despite being only 200m from where we were, we couldn’t see because it was in a valley. As such, we drove into Thornton proper - with the station being slightly out of the centre - and walked down to this rather imposing twenty arch structure. It’s amazing to think that it’s no longer in use, such is its imposing nature on the landscape. It’s tall thin arches only added to its dominance and it only got more dominating as you viewed it from multiple angles. It was interesting to see a trio of youths unperturbed by the cows in the field playing with their drones, while we decided to explore this rather quaint village. It’s now really just a suburb of western Bradford but some of the old buildings still survive including mills, lanes where industry workshops once stood and the house in which the Bronte sisters were born, which was a surprise to see. It was quite non-descript, which I guess isn’t a surprise, while the church at one end of the town was undoubtedly the architectural highlight, at least after the viaduct. The fact they have a coffee house called He Brews entertains me greatly.
So that was it really, after this we headed home to watch the football, Wolfie did work and we had a rather relaxing cheap weekend. It’s a shame that Work begins again tomorrow.
